


Disgraced

by shakespeareaddict



Series: The Fourteenth Auxiliary Infantry [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: 13-year-old Zuko, Agni Kai, Angst, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, poor Zuko
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-29
Updated: 2013-11-29
Packaged: 2018-01-02 23:59:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1063245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shakespeareaddict/pseuds/shakespeareaddict
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All Zuko wanted was to please his father.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Disgraced

**Author's Note:**

> This, right here, is the start of a "UA"--a Universe Alterations fic, if you will. (I got the term from this post on tumblr: http://shakespeareaddict.tumblr.com/post/68183228223/derenzis-inuysha-link-lover-algrenion-i#note-container). If you can't tell what plot point I changed by the end of the fic, I've done something wrong.  
> Anyway, this focuses on the famous, before-series Agni Kai between Zuko and Ozai. Enjoy!  
> 6/15/2015--Minor edits to punctuation and spacing.

Zuko isn’t afraid, at first. War Minister Bujing is a formidable firebender, of course, but the man is honorable, and even if he doesn’t go easy on Zuko for being a kid (which he better not—Zuko is just as good as any adult, thankyouverymuch), he’ll stop at first burn. Uncle said so; Zuko didn’t need the reassurance, though, because Bujing got into an Agni Kai with a man who was trying to woo his wife, and Zuko saw the whole thing. The War Minister had nearly taken the other man’s leg off, but after the first burn he stopped. There was a lot of threatening after that, but that’s only natural. So Zuko knows he’ll only have to worry about losing, not about dying or being hurt badly.

See, Zuko doesn’t agree with War Minister Bujing’s tactics at all. It might not be a bad idea from a military point of view, sending in less experienced men to soften up an enemy’s position before letting the other troops have at it, but he doesn’t think it’s for the best for the Fire Nation, and he just wants what’s best for the Fire Nation. That’s why he spoke up, even though Uncle told him not to; it’s not good for morale if inexperienced men are sacrificed on purpose. It’ll drop the recruiting rate for sure. Some people might even start to question if the war is worth it—which it is, it has to be, because Lu Ten died for this war and if Lu Ten died for nothing—

It’s worth it, Zuko is certain.

But if new recruits are sent into battle and left to die, other than the fact that that’s totally betraying them, then the citizens of the Fire Nation might not think it’s worth it, and if they don’t believe it’s worth it, then there’s no war, and they _have_ to finish the war and help the rest of the world. Losing is not an option.

So he spoke up against War Minister Bujing, and now he’s going to fight him in an Agni Kai, and Zuko’s nervous about fighting in front of so many people, and he’s also scared that if he loses the fight then his father will go ahead and sacrifice those new recruits. He knows he’ll never be able to convince Father to _not_ go through with it if he loses, and it’s not fair to those men in the Forty-First. He’s _got_ to win. Nothing else is worth it.

These are his thoughts as he steps out into the arena, doing his best to not shake with nerves. He is a Fire Prince, and he’s got to do what’s best for his people, and he manages, surprisingly, to keep his head up high, to nod smartly to the gathered War Ministers where he can make out their uniforms, if not their faces, to stand proud as he waits for the gong to turn around and face….

It isn’t War Minister Bujing.

It’s his father. His father, who looks angrier than Zuko had ever seen him, and Zuko has seen him angry before, but never like this. Father’s eyes blaze like comets, his face is a thunderstorm in the eye of a hurricane. Zuko wasn’t afraid of getting hurt by War Minister Bujing, but he is and has always been very much afraid of his father.

Actually fighting Father never crosses Zuko’s mind. Instead he falls to his hands and knees and begs for mercy, for forgiveness, because—he only had the Fire Nation’s best interests at heart! How can Father not _see_ that? He loves Father, he loves his people, he never meant disrespect. Everything he does is for the good of the Fire Nation. How can Father not know?

Father walks forwards, though, and tells him to fight. He moves with the grace of a volcano-leopard circling her prey. Zuko wants to run away. He wants his mother. He wants a lot of things he can never have, like Father’s favor, and the one thing that keeps him on his hands and knees, the one thing that makes him kneel before Father and not back down, back away, is the thought that submitting to his punishment might mean it is not so great as it would be if he did stand up and fight. Father fights past first burn, sometimes to the death, even. Maybe, by allowing himself to be punished properly, he will eventually be forgiven. He would do anything to be forgiven.

But Father raises his hand, and the world explodes in agony.

*

When he can wake up and focus on something other than the blinding pain on the left half of his face, Uncle is there, sitting to his right. His other eye is still kept closed by the swath of bandages on that side of his head. It’s weird, trying to open only one eye and focus on Uncle with it, but he forces himself to manage it. Uncle might have news from Father.

When Uncle finally speaks, it’s to say this: “As part of your punishment, your father has disinherited you.”

 _What?_ he wants to say, _what? Why? What did I do wrong?_ He knows the answer to that last one, he thinks—he spoke out of turn, he refused to fight his father but did not admit to being wrong. He’s been a bad son, but—to be disinherited? To lose everything he has, everything he is? Surely Father wouldn’t be so cruel?

“You are also stripped of your name. ‘Zuko’ is a name for those destined to greatness.” Uncle made a face at that, but Zuko—no, he is nameless now, and that isn’t fair, Zuko is _his name_ , not a title, it’s important to him, what will people call him?—whoever he is now, he’s too busy trying to think past everything awful, trying to find some meaning in all of this, that he doesn’t wonder why Uncle looks so unhappy.

“You are to pick a commoner’s name”— _I’m not a commoner!_ _I'm the one whose supposed to protect them!_ he tries to say, but his tongue isn’t obeying him, no one will obey him anymore, either—“and as soon as you are well enough to travel, you will be on a boat to the Fire Nation colony starting in the Northwestern Earth Kingdom. There you will join the Fourteenth Auxiliary Infantry as a private. This is the Fire Lord’s will.”

Tears sting his healing flesh like cinders pressed to his bare feet. The pain is not enough to stop them. Desperately, the boy says, “I can please Father again, right, Uncle? There’s some way I can make him love me again?”

Uncle looks so sad at him, and shakes his head. “He is no longer your father, Nephew. He made that very clear.”

And the boy weeps until he is spent.


End file.
